[M260]Marketing And Advertising Strategies

With free advertising I suggest that you have your fingers in as many pies as possible, after all you have nothing to loose. With paid advertising on the other hand, It is better to run one campaign at a time so that you can see the effects if any that the advertising campaign is having on your website.

Free Advertising
Firstly make sure that your website is submitted to al of the major search engines, This doesn't take very long if you use Submitexpress a free website submission service.

Get your website entered into linking directories. They will require reciprocal links to their websites but will send you a steady stream of link exchange requests as well as traffic.

Write articles on a subject related to your website and submit your articles to as many free article websites as you can find. When your articles are accepted and published on the website it will give you a link to your website. Your article may also be used as free content on other websites, then they too will link to your website. Make sure that you add the html code to create a hyper link in the article submission form in the ?About the Author? section.

Link exchanges are an important part of getting your website known. Click here for more information about link exchanges. Some link exchanges you may want to select for homepage reciprocal linking, where both websites agree to display one another's links on their homepages. This means generally that your link is in a visible, more prominent spot rather then being buried on a link page somewhere. Link pages also usually have the highest Google page rank of a website. Homepage links are beneficial if you are linking to a website with a high concentration of target traffic, such as a community with similar interest to your website content.

Top Lists are a great way of gaining high traffic. Free top list scripts can be obtained online at chipmunks. However, it is difficult to turn the clicks brought to you by the top list into real traffic because there are so many links on the page, and it is a balancing act trying to cream off the clicks and yet keep your link partners on the list happy. Top List linking partners get upset by obvious traffic herding. They want the top list to be fair and to give them the opportunity to get the clicks themselves.

Communication is a key factor in advertising. Never underestimate how good it is to talk. Build up a mailing list and collect email address of your visitors. This is easier said than done, the public generally need a little incentive to interact. Hosting a competition is a great way of arousing interest. This may incur costs for prizes and P&P for sending winners prizes, or you could approach companies and ask them to sponsor prizes in return for heavily adverting their website on your competition pages. Use a competition to build up your mailing list by adding all entrants to your mailing list. Additionally increase your traffic by giving competition entrants the opportunity to message friends about the competition. When hosting a competition it does need a bit of a push to get the ball rolling, people can't enter if they don't know the competition is there.

Use a newsletter to advertise. Email your mailing list on a regular basis, monthly or bi weekly. Include interesting information in your newsletters such as, jokes, free offers or discounts, sale information, bargains, new products r developments in the market etc. All advertising in your newsletter that links to a website should to websites you are affiliated with. Remember to use the HTML code to ensure that you are credited with any commission earnt. Keep all content in your newsletter relevant to your website content, after all that is what your visitors joined your mailing list for.

Ensure that your newsletter products click throughs to your website by only adding partial information, appetising morsels that they want to click through to your website for the full story. Always add ?More info here...? with a link directly to the whole story, don't expect people to go searching your website because nine times out of ten, is they can't see it on the landing page, they click off.

Banner Bots are a great advertising medium and can be obtained freely. Banner bots work because they appear to be communicating with your visitors. As a rule, receiving information audibly is easier than reading it. The bots also have novelty factor which hold the visitors interest.

Google advertising can be a cost effective means of advertising. On one hand you can have an account that allows you to pay to advertise, and on the other hand you can add HTML code to your website to generate pay per click revenue. Of course one can be used to subsidise the other. The key to Google advertising is to pay the minimal price for your advert. Don't worry that your advert is on page 8 in the morning search results. This is because other people are happily paying over the odds for each click, however they will soon reach their daily advertising limit and will no longer have their advert displayed.By the evening, when everyone is home from work and there is more traffic anyway, your advert will appear higher on the same search results.

Offering free services gives your visitors not only great freebees, but also something to tell their friends about. Word of moth is always the best form of advertising. Free services could include, free post cards, free downloads, free screensavers, free printable such as calendars or pictures for children to colour. Could your website offer a free service to your readership?

The important thing to realise about advertising is that it doesn't happen over night. It does take time and dedication. Try not to get disheartened, just keep trying new strategies and maybe modifying old ones. Remember just because one strategy didn't work once it doesn't mean to say it will never work, it may just mean that an element of the strategy was wrong, and this can be something as simple as wrong time. Try, try and try again! remember to always keep informing

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